


Unconquerable

by jo_anne_storm



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-06
Updated: 2004-06-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23235460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jo_anne_storm/pseuds/jo_anne_storm
Summary: Set during Showtime.  Spike does anything he can to resist the pain.
Kudos: 3





	Unconquerable

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to say that Invictus is far and away my favorite poem. Ive always thought it described the Buffy characters and credo perfectly.

He wasn’t all together there. He knew that. It wasn’t as bad as his time in the Sunnydale High basement. He could at least tell that the image of Buffy in front of him wasn’t real. Her words still sliced through him, much like the original’s did. But her fists didn’t hurt. No, she had the monster to do that for her. It wouldn’t do to get Ultimate Evil’s hands dirty, after all.

She had been Dru earlier, trying to sink him deeper into his madness. It had backfired. He no longer saw Dru as his reason to existing. It was Buffy now. All Buffy.

“She will come for me,” he whispered, much to the disgust of the shadow in front of him. “She will come for me.”

“No, I won’t,” The Bitch said with a smirk. “I don’t care what happens to you. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“She will come for me. She believes in me. She will come for me. She believes in me.” It was a chant. One that he believed whole heartedly. He ignored The Bitch’s words of filth. Buffy believed in him. The Bitch was just a pale imitation of his slayer.

The Bitch snarled and whirled away, waving her Buffy-hand to the turok-han, telling it to do whatever it pleased with his bruised and battered form. She often did this, having no patience for the torture sessions. Or maybe she had better things to do. Kicking puppies, maybe?

The creature hissed at him and dragged its filthy claws down his chest. Spike sucked in a quick breath to combat the pain, and let his mind wander as the vampire played with him.

_I am the master of my fate.  
I am the captain of my soul. _

He almost snorted as the line floated through his head. “Invictus,” William Earnest Henley. It was rather ironically appropriate for the circumstances. Here he was, getting fucked up, because he had taken control of his fate.

He thought over the lines of the poem and internally smiled. He had met Henley, back before he had been turned. Henley had been in the hospital he had taken his mother to. At the time, he had no idea the older man with the amputated foot was a poet. If he had, no doubt he would have pestered him for advice on his own scribblings… If he could have gathered up the courage to even talk to him.

It was only later, after he had been turned and Henley’s works had been published that he had made the connection. Spike had horded his small collection of poetry books, keeping them secret from Angelus, who only laughed at his scribblings. He had prized Henley’s _A Book of Verses_ most of all, due to his tenuous connection to the human.

When he had read “Invictus”… Even now he couldn’t describe the feeling. It was like Henley had taken the words wimpy William Rochdale had tried to express and wrote them in a way that William had only dreamed about. The feelings that Spike had tried to wring out of his own mind after his conversion. It had described his new existence perfectly, well, except for the soul part. But Spike, soul or no soul, was the master of his fate. No longer would he depend on the opinions of others.

He winced as the turok-han cut an overly sensitive piece of skin. The sudden pain drew him out of his musings, and he struggled to return to the peacefulness of his mind, to escape the pain. Earlier, it had been a fantasy about destroying the beast in front of him, only to find his slayer waiting for him. He knew it was only a fantasy, even as he experienced it. It was like those blokes that built clocks in prisoner of war camps. It was all in his head, but it kept him from going completely barmy.

He cast his mind about for another fantasy, but came up short. In desperation and pain, his mind latched upon the poem, and he started reciting it in his head.

_Out of the night that covers me,  
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,  
I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul._

Night certainly did cover him, and at the moment, the whole world looked black. But he didn’t thank the gods for his soul. That was his own doing, pure and simple.

_In the fell clutch of circumstance  
I have not winced nor cried aloud.  
Under the bludgeonings of chance  
My head is bloody, but unbowed. _

He wished he could say he had not winced nor cried. He tried his best to be strong, to resist the all-consuming pain. But it seemed like he had been crying ever since he had first come to Sunnyhell. First, for the sickly Dru, then for the rejection of first one love then another. Now he cried because of the spark. And the pain of a knife in his gut.

And he was bludgeoned alright. Bludgeoned by The Bitch’s words. He didn’t believe her though. Buffy believed in him. She would come for him.

_Beyond this place of wrath and tears  
Looms but the Horror of the shade,  
And yet the menace of the years  
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. _

He once again almost snorted. _Take that, Bitch,_ he thought. _I’m not afraid of you. She believes in me. She will come for me._

_It matters not how strait the gate,  
How charged with punishments the scroll,  
I am the master of my fate:  
I am the captain of my soul. _

He _was_ the master of his fate. And The Bitch couldn’t pull his leash anymore. He was responsible for his soul. _He_ was. Not gypsies or a screw-up Wicca. _He_ was responsible for his soul, and he was a good man. He would prove it, come Hell or high water.

The monster dug another claw into him, and he hissed in pain.

_Out of the night that covers me,  
Black as the Pit from pole to pole…_

* * *

  
Invictus  
by William Earnest Henley (1849-1903)

_Out of the night that covers me,_   
_Black as the Pit from pole to pole,_   
_I thank whatever gods may be_   
_For my unconquerable soul._

_In the fell clutch of circumstance_   
_I have not winced nor cried aloud._   
_Under the bludgeonings of chance_   
_My head is bloody, but unbowed._

_Beyond this place of wrath and tears_   
_Looms but the Horror of the shade,_   
_And yet the menace of the years_   
_Finds, and shall find, me unafraid._

_It matters not how strait the gate,_   
_How charged with punishments the scroll,_   
_I am the master of my fate:_   
_I am the captain of my soul._


End file.
